


Introduction to Breaking Down Walls

by onemechanicalalligator



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: 5+1, Anxiety, Body Image, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Food Issues, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27703886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemechanicalalligator/pseuds/onemechanicalalligator
Summary: Five times Jeff struggled alone, and one time he didn't.
Relationships: Abed Nadir/Jeff Winger
Comments: 15
Kudos: 100





	Introduction to Breaking Down Walls

**one**

“How long have you lived here?” Annie asks the very first time she comes over to Jeff’s place. She’s standing in the kitchen and he’s getting her a glass for water from the cupboard. Abed is sitting on the counter, swinging his feet back and forth.

“Five, maybe six years?” Jeff replies. He hands Annie the glass. “Why?”

“Your cabinets are almost completely empty!” She opens the refrigerator door. “Your fridge, too! Why don’t you have any food?”

Jeff’s heart speeds up and he forces himself to take a deep breath. _Think of something,_ he says to himself sharply. He can’t believe he didn’t anticipate this happening. His new friends can be so nosy. He glances at Abed, who is looking in the other direction, presumably not paying attention.

“I keep forgetting to go to the store,” Jeff blurts out. “Actually, that’s where I’m headed as soon as you guys all leave. So we should probably go help the others with the project. So that we can finish. And then I can go to the store.” 

That seems to satisfy Annie. She pours herself a glass of water, and then Jeff ushers her and Abed back into the living room, where the rest of the study group is hard at work. The project doesn’t take long once all of them are helping, and they finish quickly. 

"Have fun at the grocery store," Annie says as they’re all packing up their supplies. 

Jeff smiles, hoping it looks genuine, and walks everyone outside. Abed hangs back for a minute, looking at him. He seems like he wants to say something. Just as Jeff starts to get nervous, Abed turns around and gets into Annie’s car. They drive away.

Jeff doesn’t go to the grocery store.

Now that everyone’s gone, he can let himself process what happened in the kitchen. He’s shaking with anxiety, delayed from when he pushed it down earlier, and he feels like he’s vibrating out of his skin. _They know,_ says the voice inside Jeff’s head. _Annie and Abed know that you’re broken, and they’re going to tell everyone._

 _They don’t know,_ he argues with himself. _Calm the fuck down, Winger._

Jeff hasn’t had friends in a very long time -- not real ones, not nice ones, not ones who would come to his house and get themselves a glass of water in his kitchen. His friends at the law firm were all superficial, and Jeff liked it that way. It’s easier to keep people at arm’s length.

But somehow his study group has turned into a friend group -- Abed, Britta, Troy, Annie, Pierce, and Shirley are his _friends_ \-- and Jeff finds himself accidentally caring about them. And that’s terrifying, because what if they don’t love him the way he loves them? 

Even worse -- what if they _do?_

He goes to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of scotch. He looks at the nearly-bare cupboards and the almost-empty fridge. Everything is as he likes it. Jeff has rules about these things, about what he can eat and what he can have in the house. 

He has his rules, and he likes them, because they make him feel safe. They make him feel in control, and in his life, where so many things feel constantly haphazard and chaotic, that control is something he clings to as tightly as he can, refusing to let go at any cost.

It’s been that way as long as he can remember. Jeff measures his worth by particular sets of numbers and the ways that they come together and break apart: pounds, ounces, inches, calories, carbohydrates, miles, repetitions. He keeps track of them in spreadsheets and graphs, updating them constantly, and he reads them when he needs reassurance. He pictures them printed out and sewn together like a comforter, keeping him warm on nights when he’s cold and alone.

Like tonight. 

Jeff drinks his scotch while he zones out in front of the TV. He drinks until the anxiety lifts, until he’s no longer thinking about Abed or Annie or what they did or didn’t notice. When it finally grows dark, he turns the lights out and puts himself to bed.

He dreams about Abed. He doesn’t know why. 

**two**

Jeff is amazed that Duncan, an actual psychologist, didn’t manage to see through his little speech about food at lunch today, in the wake of his diagnosis of high cholesterol. Although, to be fair, Duncan seemed a little preoccupied by whatever that force field business was with Chang, so maybe he wasn’t really listening. 

There was a lot of truth in what Jeff said to him. Not eating donuts? True. Getting teased for dabbing pizza with napkins? True. Suffering and denial? Endlessly true. 

The lie is in the framework, the underlying message that Jeff tried to convey. He claimed to do all of these things in the name of health, in order that he might _live longer._ Which is, frankly, insane. Jeff Winger isn’t healthy, he knows that well. He’s stopped even trying, because it feels like Too Much. And he doesn’t actually want to live forever. He doesn’t even want a particularly long life. He...doesn’t really care enough.

That’s not to say the cholesterol issue didn’t freak him out, which is why he went on the rant to Duncan in the first place. Cholesterol is unhealthy. Unhealthy means fat. Too much cholesterol means too much fat means now even the doctor knows that Jeff isn’t in control. That Jeff is a failure.

Jeff goes to the deserted study room for the rest of lunch. He walks back and forth and wrings his hands. His brain is imploding a little, with this health information, and this almost confession to Duncan, and he just needs not to be around people right now. He jumps up and down a few times, trying to get rid of the excess energy coursing through his body. Anxiety is fizzing through him and he doesn’t know how to fix it, how to make it go away.

Finally he sits down on the floor, trying to ground himself, to get himself together. He wraps his arms around his knees and rocks back and forth. He tries to make himself breathe, to take slow, deep breaths, the way he’s practiced, the way he learned in therapy (back when he used to go). He tries to clear his mind, focus on his breath.

When he finally feels he has a handle on himself, he leaves the study room and looks for Abed. He doesn’t want to talk about any of this, but he still wants to be near Abed right now, with his quiet understanding, his ability to refrain from asking too many questions. When Jeff does find him, though, he’s supporting a heavily pregnant girl on his arm and headed towards the parking lot, and they look to be in the middle of something. 

Instead, Jeff goes to search for Troy and Pierce, in hopes that they can distract him from his issues with their own. 

**three**

Jeff has a system worked out, one that’s been in place for over a year now without any issues. He spends lunch with his friends in the cafetorium every day, and he talks so much that no one notices whether or not he’s eating. He'll usually put food on his plate for good measure, to add to the illusion. But he never eats any of it if he can help it.

It’s not that he _never eats._ That’s not the problem. The problem is _eating in front of other people._ Jeff can barely stand to eat in front of one person, let alone six, but the study group insists on spending lunch together almost every day, as long as their schedules allow it. And Annie is too attentive for Jeff to be able to lie about being in class. 

It’s a Thursday, and they’re halfway through lunch, and Jeff is moving the food around with his fork and listening to everyone else talk when he feels someone's eyes on him. He glances up to see Britta watching him from her seat next to him, a concerned look on her face. 

“Why aren’t you eating?” she whispers. 

“Not really hungry,” Jeff replies, and it isn’t _exactly_ a lie. He truly has no appetite right now.

“You should eat your lunch anyway,” Britta says. “It’s not healthy to skip meals.”

“It’s fine, Britta,” Jeff says. “Leave it alone.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Shirley asks from across the table, and then all eyes are on them.

Suddenly Jeff feels like he’s suffocating. He can’t control what’s about to come out of Britta’s mouth, and the more he argues with her, the more it’s just going to turn into a Big Thing, which is the last thing he wants. He feels his heart start to race as he panics, and the lights suddenly feel too bright, and he wishes he could just die right here, right now, so he doesn’t have to face this. 

“I was just asking Jeff why he isn’t--” Britta begins, but she’s cut off by Abed, who gets up abruptly and noisily and walks over to stand behind Jeff.

“We have to go,” he says, his voice flat and unordinary. “We’re going to be late for that meeting. Grab your bag and hurry up.”

Jeff looks up at him, and Abed’s eyes widen, like he’s trying to communicate something. Rather than try to decipher it, Jeff stands up, grabs his bag, and follows him. 

They walk down the hall for a while, eventually stopping in front of Abed’s locker.

“Meeting?” Jeff gasps, his heart still racing.

“There’s no meeting,” Abed says. “You looked like you were having a panic attack. I thought it might help to get you out of there without everyone noticing.”

“But _you_ noticed?” Jeff presses. 

“I notice most things, Jeff,” Abed says. “I’m an observer.” He gives Jeff a small smile. 

Jeff nods. “Well...thank you.”

“Are you okay?” Abed’s eyes are kind, his head tilted slightly to one side.

“I’m fine,” Jeff says. Abed raises one eyebrow. “I’ll be fine,” Jeff amends. “Seriously, thank you for getting me out of there.”

“You’re welcome,” Abed says. “See you later in the library.” He walks away.

Jeff watches him go, all the way until he turns the corner, and then Jeff goes outside, where he hopes he won’t run into the study group when they finish lunch. He thinks about how Abed just bailed him out, completely out of the blue. How Abed knew that he wasn’t okay. 

He thinks about that for a long time. 

**four**

Shirley’s love language is baking. This isn’t anything new; the only thing that’s new is the _volume_. Shirley has been baking up a storm lately, and she’s been bringing everything to study group meetings to distribute among her friends.

Jeff loves Shirley, he really, really does. He doesn’t want to do anything to hurt or offend her, and he _definitely_ doesn’t want to make a scene. But it starts to become a struggle when she begins handing out brownies and cookies and muffins _every single day of the week._

He tries just declining at first. Everyone knows, by now, that Jeff doesn’t really eat carbs, that he’s not a huge fan of sweets. So he says _no, thank you,_ and he smiles at Shirley.

The fourth day of this in a row, Shirley smiles back and says, “One brownie won’t hurt you, Jeff.”

He doesn’t want to argue. He doesn’t want to say, _you don’t understand, Shirley._ He doesn’t want to say, _one brownie will absolutely hurt me._ He doesn’t want to say, _it’ll break my brain because I can’t do this, not like normal people can._ He doesn’t want to eat the brownie. 

But Shirley is staring at him with an aggressive smile on her face, and everyone else is watching, so Jeff does the only thing he can do. He takes the brownie.

He takes a bite and chews for a long time. He swallows and looks up at Shirley.

“That’s delicious,” he says, trying to smile back at her, and he’s not lying, but his brain is screaming so loudly he’s amazed that no one else can hear it.

“I knew you’d like it!” Shirley says with a giggle, and she turns to talk to Troy.

Jeff takes some deep breaths and tries to calm down. He feels like all eyes are on him, even though a quick look around tells him that, in fact, _no one_ is looking at him. No one except Abed, who glances briefly at Jeff before looking away in what is clearly a deliberate choice. Jeff doesn’t know how to interpret that, but he doesn’t have the energy to try.

Everyone sits and eats the brownies while they chat and study, and Jeff pretends to take bites of his until Shirley turns in his direction, and then he takes real bites, just to be safe, because he knows she’s watching. In the end, he consumes about half the brownie before he’s able to crumple it up in his napkin and throw it away.

Study group ends, and everyone leaves except Jeff, who stays behind, his heart pounding and stomach churning. He doesn’t think he can drive while he’s feeling like this, so he resigns himself to staying in the room a little longer. He gets up and turns off the light, because he can’t bear to look at himself.

He knows it’s just half a brownie. He also knows tomorrow will be _just_ a cookie and the next day it will be _just_ something else. He knows that none of these desserts are excessive, that this is _fine,_ that there’s no reason for him to be having a breakdown like this. But knowing those things only makes it worse, reminding him that there’s something wrong with him. _He shouldn’t be like this._

Jeff walks over to the couch and sits down. He prods and pinches at his body through his shirt, at his abdomen and his arms. He’s not sure if he’s trying to reassure himself or punish himself. Finally he stops and puts his head in his hands, pulling on his hair, and that’s how he’s sitting when he hears the door open.

He sighs and sits up, trying to make himself appear normal. He looks over to see Abed quietly walking towards him. Abed goes straight to the other end of the couch and sits down. He turns towards Jeff and tilts his head slightly to one side.

“Do you need something, Abed?” Jeff asks, cringing at how irritated he sounds. He _is_ irritated, but Abed has as much a right to be here as Jeff does.

“I actually came back to check on you,” Abed admits. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I am,” Jeff says quickly. “I’m fine.” It doesn’t sound believable at all _._

Abed stays completely still, looking at Jeff. He doesn’t say anything, and Jeff wonders if he’s supposed to say more. He doesn’t want to. Finally, Abed opens his mouth.

“People think I’m a robot or an alien,” he says. “Because I don’t know how to interact with other people a lot of the time. I’m not good with facial expressions or social cues. You know that.”

Jeff nods.

“What I am good at is observation. I may not know how to read people, but I can watch them and study them and try to understand them. And I do that often. It’s helpful for writing and directing films, too.” He pauses and bites his lip.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on with you, Jeff?” Abed asks quietly.

Jeff feels like someone just hit his chest with a sledgehammer. He stares at Abed, then closes his eyes as if that will somehow make him invisible, then opens them again in defeat. He doesn’t say anything.

Abed just watches him. His face is calm but concerned, and he seems content to wait until Jeff is ready to talk. He fiddles with the strings of his hoodie and blinks a few times.

Jeff doesn’t know what to do. Abed once waited 26 straight hours for a psych experiment, so it’s not like Jeff is going to be able to get away with saying nothing until Abed gives up. His first instinct is to lie, but he’s fairly certain Abed can tell when he’s lying.

And a tiny part of him actually _wants_ to tell the truth. Jeff’s never told the truth to anyone, not even his old therapist, and he wonders if saying it out loud might change something. If it might help somehow.

“Nothing’s going on,” he finally says. Abed doesn’t react, and Jeff continues. “I just have...some issues with food. And...body image.”

Abed nods. 

“Do you want to talk about them?” he asks.

“No,” Jeff says.

“Okay,” Abed says. “I’d like you to know that I’m here if you ever do.”

“Thanks,” Jeff whispers, so quietly that he glances up at Abed to see if he even heard him.

“You’re welcome,” Abed says softly. “I’ll see you later, Jeff.”

“See you,” Jeff replies. 

Abed leaves.

**five**

When Annie has a meltdown over losing her pen, her hysteria seems to spread to everyone else in the group, too. Suddenly people are yelling, tearing bags open to see what’s inside, and accusing each other of taking the pen. It’s utter chaos, and Jeff is right there in the middle of it, screaming at Annie like she’s not still basically just a child. It’s not his finest moment.

By the time they all decide to strip and search each other, Jeff’s running on pure adrenaline, and he barely knows what’s happening. It’s loud and frantic and confusing, and suddenly he’s in his underwear behind a table with Troy and Abed, and he doesn’t even have time to panic about it.

It’s not the first time this group has seen him without his clothes on, anyway -- everyone saw him naked during that notorious pool game last year, and he got through that just fine. Jeff is proud, actually, of his ability to power through _in the moment,_ to push his insecurities aside and deal with them later. 

The unfortunate thing is, it doesn’t work every time, and the rules are unpredictable. 

The fortunate thing is, right now it’s working in his favor.

They spend an unreasonable amount of time with their clothes off while they cater to Annie’s unreasonable demand for her pen, and Jeff’s so fed up by the end that he’s willing to give a Winger speech just to convince everyone that the pen was stolen by a ghost. At this point, he honestly doesn’t even know what’s happening -- but at least it’s finally over.

“Some bottle episode,” Abed says to Troy as they’re walking to the parking lot, once again fully dressed and still not in possession of the pen. 

“Dude, when did you get that six-pack?” Troy asks in reply, and it’s been on Jeff’s mind, too, though he couldn’t say why. 

He just knows that Abed looked good today, clad only in his briefs, surprisingly fit for how skinny he is. Jeff knows that he liked having the opportunity to look at him, that he had to keep himself from looking too much, or for too long. He knows his thoughts are entering dangerous territory, and he shuts them down right there, stops thinking about Abed altogether. 

He gets in his car and drives home, preparing for the aftermath of today’s adventure, the deluge of shame that will hit him at any moment. He knows it’ll come, just like it did after the pool game -- that moment of clarity, the realization that people, _lots of people,_ just saw his body undressed.

Logically, Jeff knows that there’s no point in freaking out after the fact. His friends saw him, and now it’s over, probably no one is thinking about it anymore. It’s over and done with, and there’s no point in worrying about it ever again.

Except it doesn’t work that way, not in Jeff’s brain. Jeff’s brain gets stuck on the incident and then spins itself in circles, going over every moment, every detail, thinking about every person in the room, what they might have seen, what they might have thought. He runs it over and over like a film reel in his head, and even as he does it, he _knows_ he’s being crazy. He _knows,_ and he _still can’t stop it._

Jeff grabs a fluffy blanket from the closet and wraps himself up in it so he can’t see his body, so he has no shape at all. He curls up on the couch with the lights off, and he turns on the TV to try to distract himself, all the while knowing it won’t work. Then he lets the reel play, lets himself feel everything: ashamed, afraid, embarrassed, exposed. He allows the feelings to wash over him and soak into his skin, into his bones, becoming part of him. He doesn’t know what else to do with them.

His phone is on the coffee table next to him, and he finds himself wanting to call Abed, to tell him how he’s feeling, because he knows Abed would be willing to listen. He’s desperate for that connection, so desperate he starts to reach for the phone before he catches himself.

He can’t share this with Abed. He can’t share this with anyone, ever, but especially not Abed. Abed doesn’t deserve that burden. Abed doesn’t need to know just how broken Jeff really is. He might never look at Jeff the same way again, if he knew. 

And Abed looks at Jeff sometimes. Jeff has seen him. And he likes it. 

He pushes that thought down with the one from earlier, shoves them in a box for _forbidden desires,_ lodged somewhere deep inside his heart. It’s not that he’s afraid of pursuing a man -- it wouldn’t be the first time. It’s just that Abed feels too important and unattainable. Jeff doesn’t feel worthy of someone like Abed, and he can’t even afford to entertain the thought of having him, of being loved by him, wanted by him, touched by him.

Jeff swallows and tries to shut his brain off completely. 

He takes a second blanket from the back of the couch and wraps it around the first one, so that now he’s just an amorphous blob, one without lines or curves, muscles or bones. He stares at the television and tries to listen to what the people on screen are saying, only he can’t even tell whether this is a show or a commercial.

Jeff is overwhelmed and exhausted and _all alone._ It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last, but he tries to focus on the positives.

 _You held it together until you got home,_ he reminds himself. _You did that, and that’s important._ He accomplished something vital, he preserved his dignity and the last few shreds of his sanity in front of his friends. He kept himself in one piece, something that often feels impossible. 

_You should be proud of yourself,_ he thinks. 

He isn’t.

**plus one**

Jeff and Abed finally spend their first night together in Abed’s dorm room. It happens long after the bottle episode, and it isn’t planned, and it doesn’t come on the heels of a first date. It comes as the natural conclusion to months of conversations and stolen kisses, private moments in the dark study room or behind a shelf in the library, in Jeff’s car or up against a tree on the quad. 

They’re outside this time, in the early evening, when Abed says, “Do you want to come back to my dorm?” 

Jeff doesn’t even reply, he just starts walking, grabbing Abed by the hand, almost dragging him. They get to Abed’s room just as it’s growing dark outside, and as soon as Abed unlocks the door they collapse in a pile on the bottom bunk, kissing and touching like they’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time, and maybe they have.

Jeff takes Abed’s shirt off, and Abed reaches for Jeff’s but hesitates. He looks Jeff in the eye, something he doesn’t often do, and he waits. 

Jeff is caught off guard by this act of kindness, not sure whether to be appreciative or embarrassed. He pauses, tries to get his thoughts together. Abed waits patiently.

“You’re asking my permission because of my…” Jeff trails off, trying to think of a gesture that will say “fucked up body image and food issues” without having to say it out loud, but he’s at a loss. Luckily, Abed can read him like a book.

“Yes,” he says simply. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

Jeff nods and swallows. No one has ever asked him what he’s comfortable with before -- he’s not sure he even _knows._ What he does know is that he’s with Abed, and with Abed he feels safe. And that’s enough.

“You can take it off,” he says, and Abed nods once and then does just that. 

Later, when it's all over and they're sleepy, Abed changes into pajamas and gives Jeff an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants. They sit cross-legged on the couch, facing each other, and Jeff thinks vaguely that this feels like a slumber party.

Normally, at this point after a hookup, Jeff is ready to say goodbye and disappear forever. He's ready to go home and sit with his anxiety. He's ready to jump off the roof, disgusted with himself. 

Tonight, he thinks about how Abed has seen his whole body now, up close and unguarded, has touched it and tasted it and cherished it. 

Tonight, Jeff feels safe and loved, and it's an unfamiliar feeling. One that takes some time to process. 

Abed is looking at Jeff as though he’s waiting for him to speak. 

For the first time, Jeff is ready.

“Do you remember last year, when you told me you’d be here if I ever wanted to talk about...things?” Jeff asks timidly. 

“I do,” says Abed. He reaches across and takes Jeff's hands in his. 

“I think I’m ready now,” Jeff whispers.

Then he takes a breath and prepares to be honest for the first time. 


End file.
